# I'm generally not a total idiot. But this one time... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 4, 2010, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660 "2010-01-04T19:27:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/41 "2010-01-07T07:17:57Z")
> [@Mindfield](#): > > I didn’t know Magic Erasers had chemicals. I thought they were just foam designed a specific way that allowed them to do what they do. > [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Me too - I thought they were just a particularly clever microabrasive. Perhaps you’ve just managed to scar yourself? First, it is possible to “burn” yourself with abrasives. Properly speaking, the wounds are abrasions and not burns, but they look very much like 1-st degree burns and the scar can last years (mine from abrading my wrist with a Spanish rolling blind’s raising strip did, this blind was wood and full-height so it was very heavy). Second, it is not possible to make ANYTHING without chemicals, dagnabit! You two are punished in the corner! ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/42 "2010-01-07T11:30:01Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > First, it is possible to “burn” yourself with abrasives. Properly speaking, the wounds are abrasions and not burns, but they look very much like 1-st degree burns and the scar can last years (mine from abrading my wrist with a Spanish rolling blind’s raising strip did, this blind was wood and full-height so it was very heavy). > > Second, it is not possible to make ANYTHING without chemicals, dagnabit! You two are punished in the corner! I know it’s made from a chemical, I mean it’s not actually exuding anything caustic. 😛 And I think abrasion is a better way to describe it than a burn. The original description makes it sound like one could damage one’s skin even with casual contact with one of these Magic Erasers. ---
**Author:** ![Not\_a\_Platypus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d26b3c/32.png) [@Not\_a\_Platypus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_a_Platypus)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/43 "2010-01-07T12:44:47Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > I nearly had to tell people that I walked into a door, and it was the truth. That’s a classic “my husband beats me but I’m not going to admit it” line. I was getting into the passenger side door of our car, and looked over my shoulder for some reason. Meanwhile I was still moving towards the car, and turned my head back during that process. _Whap!_ Smacked myself next to my eye with the pointy upper corner of the car door. Fortunately I didn’t even bruise, else that would have been awful to deal with. Ha! Or you could be like a friend of mine, and go the other way. Before I met her, her husband told me about a time when she’d done something klutzy and had a black eye. When people at work asked her about it, she said “Dan said the dishes won’t wash themselves…”. He thinks it’s funny but she’s pretty appalled when he tells that story 😃 For my own idiocy, it was a few years ago when I did apartment maintenance for a living. I needed to replace a cord for a dryer, and they look very similar to a stove cord, so I took one over to the apartment to make sure it was the right one before hooking it up to the appliance. Do I compare the plug and outlet to see if they match? No, that’d be the smart way. I plugged the damn thing in. While the rest of it was in my hand. It was all coiled up, wrapped in plastic, so thankfully I wasn’t actually touching the bare metal end, but it sure did make a pretty blue spark! The stupid continues when I grab the cord and unplug it while it’s still arcing, instead of turning the power off first. After my boss was finally convinced I was (stunned at my own stupidity, but) okay, he didn’t stop laughing about that all week. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/44 "2010-01-07T15:25:28Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > …Second, it is not possible to make ANYTHING without chemicals, dagnabit! You two are punished in the corner! Which is why I stated that it “doesn’t contain any chemical cleaners (apart from the inert, non-toxic substance the sponge itself is composed of)” back in Post #9. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/45 "2010-01-07T16:36:38Z")
> [@shantih](#): > > Boy, this is going to seem awfully tame after the harrowing tales so far. > > I was in the housewares section of our department store and they had a new product displayed prominently: a special peeler for asparagus spears or carrots. You put the whole thing in one end and pull or push it through, and it comes out peeled. I picked it up, idly curious, and stuck … my finger … in. The non-cutting end. Which would have been fine if my finger, like a carrot, had been unattached at the other end; I could have just put it all the way through, no harm. However, since the entire rest of my body wasn’t going to fit … > > _sigh_ > > I managed to maneuver my finger out slowly and carefully enough that I only lightly peeled the one side, so, um, go me? > > moron My daughter did something similar - when she was four. She was drinking 7-up from a can and thought it would be smart to put her finger in to touch the beverage. We _sloooowly_ eased her finger out, with a little owie. My nephew, who was about the same age, put his finger in a pencil sharpener and sharpened his finger. I wince at that one. Ow! ---
**Author:** ![QuercusMax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/8baadc/32.png) [@QuercusMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuercusMax)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/46 "2010-01-07T17:27:41Z")
I’ve got two. The first is when my wife and I were in dating in college. She had an off-campus apartment, and I lived on campus, about a half-mile away. One night, as I was heading back to my dorm at around 1:30 AM, I opened the door leading into my building, and as I did so, attempted to enter. The problem was that I didn’t bother to wait until the door was open before going in. So I slammed myself in the face with the edge of the heavy metal door, putting a huge scratch in the right lens of my glasses, and giving myself a nice shiner. The other one happened when one of our kids was quite small, and I wasn’t getting much sleep. It was late in the evening, probably around 11:30PM. I was clearing some dishes, and in the process dropped a glass on the floor, where it broke. It didn’t shatter; instead it broke into some lovely long shards, with the heavy base of the glass connected to some nice point pieces. So I pick up the pieces and proceed to drop it _again_. Only this time, instead of falling on the floor, I dropped the base of the glass, pointy-piece-first, onto the back of my right calf, where it sliced a nice big gash. I still have the scar a few years later. To this day, I don’t know _how_ I managed to drop it on the back of my leg, but it sure was bloody. I guess the moral of these stories is that I get extremely uncoordinated when I’m tired, and probably should just go to bed sooner so I don’t injure myself. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/47 "2010-01-07T17:37:06Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > I nearly had to tell people that I walked into a door, and it was the truth. That’s a classic “my husband beats me but I’m not going to admit it” line. I was getting into the passenger side door of our car, and looked over my shoulder for some reason. Meanwhile I was still moving towards the car, and turned my head back during that process. _Whap!_ Smacked myself next to my eye with the pointy upper corner of the car door. Fortunately I didn’t even bruise, else that would have been awful to deal with. I did something similar with the clothes washer lid once. You’re leaning over to get the clothes in, and sometimes something catches the lid and pulls it down BANG! right in your face. Ow. Then there was the time I forgot I was under a concrete balcony and stood straight up. I think I did actually see stars. Or the time I was walking with my head turned and walked right into a sign. The funniest stupid thing I heard about someone else doing was walking along with a handful of change to get on the bus, then he saw a pretty girl. He was watching the pretty girl as he was walking, and hit something at about groin level. Not only did he hit something at groin level (bad enough), but his change all went flying out of his hand with a nice loud sound as it hit the ground (and then he had to pick it all up to pay for the bus). Smoooove. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Intercourse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Textual\_Intercourse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Intercourse)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/48 "2010-01-07T17:47:52Z")
I recall one instance when I was kid… I just finished watching Robocop and like any imaginative kid, I wanted to become Robo myself. Just needed the right tools. I taped an old circuit board to my left arm and an extended recharging module (i.e. flathead screwdriver) to my right hand. After that I proceeded to _recharge_ myself by sticking the screwdriver into a power outlet. It was truly the total Robocop experience. ---
**Author:** ![cards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@cards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cards)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/49 "2010-01-07T17:54:12Z")
> [@kapri](#): > > … veggie spareribs … This does not compute. If this real, it must be an abomination. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/50 "2010-01-07T18:14:55Z")
When I was in high school, I didn’t have a curfew per se, especially on non-school nights or during the summer–I just had to let Mom know when I was home. So one night I come home probably around midnight, walk upstairs, and head toward Mom’s room. “Wow, it’s really dark out–I can’t see into her room at all,” I think, as I walk up. Not processing that every other time I’ve walked up to her room, even in the middle of the night, there’s always some light coming in from outside. And, as I continue to marvel that I can’t see anything inside the room at all, I **walk face-first into the closed door**. ---
**Author:** ![justrob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@justrob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justrob)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/51 "2010-01-07T19:37:52Z")
When I was a kid, ~4 or so, I was trying to blow up a balloon. I figured when you blow it up it stretches out so if I stretched it out first it would be easier to blow up. So i caught the end between my teeth and stretched the balloon out. When I was ready to start blowing it up I let go of the end so it could inflate. Strangely the rubber snapped back before I could fill it and split my lip. A couple stitches later I was as good as new. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/52 "2010-01-07T20:13:32Z")
> [@shantih](#): > > Boy, this is going to seem awfully tame after the harrowing tales so far. > > I was in the housewares section of our department store and they had a new product displayed prominently: a special peeler for asparagus spears or carrots. You put the whole thing in one end and pull or push it through, and it comes out peeled. I picked it up, idly curious, and stuck … my finger … in. … Tame, yes, but the funniest so far. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/53 "2010-01-07T20:38:54Z")
In a townhouse apartment I was renting some years ago, there was this coffee table with a huge piece of glass set into a cheap metal frame. I was always concerned about breaking this table. I was very careful when placing objects on it, and tried not to put anything too heavy on it or to hit it with anything. Then…on my last night in the apartment, I was vacuuming the floor next to the table in preparation for moving out, and tripped over something right next to the table. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was falling, in slow motion, face first into the glass tabletop. I could not stop the fall. I was able to twist my upper body so I didn’t go through the table face-first…so I hit the table butt-first to the sound of a huge crash. I found myself sitting on my butt on the carpet with my legs hanging over the frame, and broken glass everywhere. It took me a second to take inventory and realize that I wasn’t bleeding to death. Fortunately, the glass was tempered safety glass…so I wasn’t cut at all. I felt pretty stupid sitting there on the floor, though. Thankfully, the owner didn’t charge me for the table the next day, but it did take me a while to clean up all of the glass that night. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/54 "2010-01-07T20:44:58Z")
Actually, my previous story was more clumsiness than idiocy, but I’ve got a good example of idiocy, too: …Like the time I didn’t move the gas grill far enough away from the house, and melted a pretty big section of the vinyl siding. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/55 "2010-01-07T20:46:47Z")
My sister and brother-in-law have a patch like that on the back of their house, too. 😃 ETA: I know how serious and expensive this is, but it’s funny because it didn’t happen to me. ---
**Author:** ![Gesturing\_Mildly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/65b543/32.png) [@Gesturing\_Mildly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gesturing_Mildly)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/56 "2010-01-07T20:59:32Z")
When I was in college, our furniture was stackable. My roommate and I bunked our beds, then got the bright idea to stack a bunch of cinder blocks under the legs so we could store stuff. My bunk (top) wasn’t far from the ceiling, but it didn’t matter since all I’d be doing was sleeping. Worked fine until my first sit-straight-up-in-bed nightmare. Knocked myself right out. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/57 "2010-01-07T23:23:44Z")
9th grade. We’re on a field trip at our town’s natural history museum. We’ve got a guy there showing us how to flint knap and work obsidian. I thought this was awesome, because I collected rocks. He warns us halfway through the demonstration that Obsidian is glass, and therefore broken obsidian is very sharp. Earlier, I’d reached out to grab one of the chunks, and still had it in my hand. “It can’t be that sharp!” I think. Taking the shard in my left hand, I brought it towards my right, beween the wrist and the thumb, and drew it across the skin. It didn’t bleed for a second. It barely even hurt. But, as the thin, raised, 3.4" long scar on my twelve-years-older hand can attest, it most certainly _was_ sharp. ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Tonya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/4491bb/32.png) [@Queen\_Tonya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Tonya)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/58 "2010-01-08T02:20:20Z")
I worked the closing shift at McDonalds on the weekends for a while when I was in high school. Since my normal weekly schedule was getting up at 5:30 in the morning, working until 3 a.m. wasn’t the best plan. I’d be dead on my feet tired driving home, and then would get bitched at the next morning by all the family members who were rudely awakened by my fumbling about in my drowsy clumsiness when I came home. One night I was being extra special careful to be quiet and not wake anyone. Turned my engine off and coasted to a stop in front of the house, walked all the way round to the back door the furthest from the bedrooms, took my shoes off outside before opening the door, even. I was worried about lights possibly shining into opened bedroom doors, so decided I could find my way to my room in the dark. No stairs or other obstacles, and it’s the same house I’d lived in my entire life, what could go wrong? Both hands out in front of me as feelers, I begin tiptoeing in the pitch-black house towards the hallway. And one hand was, in fact, _in_ the hall and the other in the living room as I ran face-first into the corner of the wall. Hard enough to break my glasses, split my lip and give me an instant bloody nose, and of course wake the entire house up. “What the hell was that?!” being answered by “My face, sorry” still cracks up the entire family 20 years later. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/59 "2010-01-09T04:40:13Z")
You know, sometimes **not** completely injuring yourself can be embarassing too. When I was a freshman in college, some friends talked me into going to the homecoming game. We painted blue pawprints on our faces (Wildcats) and sat through a long boring game. At the end of the game I learned two things: 1. Even on a cloudy October day, you can still get a sunburn if you’re outside long enough 2. Facepaint makes good sunscreen Yep, I burned my whole face…except in the shape of a pawprint. That made for a fun week. Why did so many people ask if it was on purpose? Would anyone do that on purpose?! ---
**Author:** ![horsetech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dec6dc/32.png) [@horsetech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/horsetech)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660/60 "2010-01-09T05:22:38Z")
I am in the dictionary next to the word klutz. Some highlights: I have problems with doors. Namely, I have problems coordinating the door-opening step and the walking-through step so that they happen in the correct order with the correct timing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve either opened the door into my face or grunted as I collided with the still-closed door as my hand was reaching for the doorknob. My cat is on subQ fluids every other day, and I have an empty medicine bottle on my desk that I use to collect the needles to take back to work for disposal. One evening, I got distracted on my way back to my desk and the needle did not make it to safety – I was so distracted, I wasn’t even aware that I hadn’t put it away. Later that evening, I was twisting around in my desk chair and felt a stinging sensation in my _gluteus maximus._ Convinced that some Hymenopteran of Death was having its way with my ass, I leaped up and started swatting myself. I looked down at the chair and realized that I had managed to drop the capped (I know, you’re not supposed to recap needles, it’s a habit from doing [del]horse[/del] house calls and not having the sharps container handy) needle on my chair and then sit on it in such a way that, when I twisted around, it came out of its cap and stabbed my in the ass. It bled for a while, but I’ve had my tetanus shot and there’s enough blubber that it was a LONG way from anything important. I am now known in my family as The Genius Who Managed To Stab Herself In The Ass. In the space of one week, I managed to complete aforementioned back-stabbing feat, step in cat poop, sit in cat vomit, fall off a mounting block and end up on the ground underneath the horse, and slip in horse poop and end up underneath a different horse. I really think I should go live in a padded room somewhere. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-generally-not-a-total-idiot-but-this-one-time/523660.md?page=4)